Conventional door lock assemblies normally comprise a knob which is rotated to retract a latch from a striker plate. In emergency situations, such as when a crowd of children attempt to leave a room en masse in the face of impending danger such as fire, it may prove difficult to rotate the knob a sufficient amount to open the door. The State of California, for example, has enacted laws requiring the use of panic hardware on at least one door to provide expeditious egress from a public room designed to accommodate forty or more people.
Attempts have been made to construct lock assemblies of the panic hardware type to expedite the unlatching thereof in emergency situations. However, such attempts have normally resulted in complex and expensive hardware which do not always provide the desired structural integrity and capability of operating efficiently over an extended period of time. In addition, it is highly desirable to convert a standard lock assembly with reliable panic hardware economically and expeditiously.